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The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

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Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#241

Post by bradlys »

milkytron wrote: post #222
a2tech wrote: post #58

My wife has a staff of 20 and most of them are young-ish. Like a few years out of college, first real professional job. About half of them have packed up their apartments and gone home to their parents. They're still paying their rent but they're living with their parents so they can have a little social interaction and have more room than their apartments. Its caused a little concern with the higher ups because they…

Are they all working remotely, and did they have permission to? I'm curious why there would be arguments over this, why would higher ups want people to stay put when the work is remote anyway?

Time zone differences. Remote people are less likely to want to come back to the office after or might be slow to do such (“cant yet. Have to find a place to live. Will take months.”) Taxation purposes. Plenty of reasons afaict.

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#242

Post by techsupporter »

Loughla wrote: post #128
keiferski wrote: post #39

I hope we see a cultural shift toward recognizing that so-called "flyover country" is actually ripe for re-development and cultural renewal. There are tens of thousands of small towns and cities in the Midwest in which buying a house is still possible for the average middle-class person. The main issue, of course, is the lack of jobs in the area, but with remote work growing, that might become less of an issue.

Also, many rural areas have cooperatives for their internet and have gigabit fiber, now. I live 40-50 minutes from the closest 'town' and 3-4 hours from the closest urban center, and I will have fiber by the end of this month. Remote work is absolutely an option. That being said, no one should consider flyover country to move to. Please stay away from my flyover country, it's bad enough with east and west coast inves…

> And it's killing the people who live out here, right now. I can't imagine what it will look like if people start moving out here.

To be blunt, this is what already happened to all of the "desirable" cities on the West Coast and, as those of us who've lived here since basically the beginning said: buck you, you can't stop it. Start preparing now for what a wave of migration looks like and take steps to make room for the new arrivals before they[0] show up and outbid everyone who's already there.

Yes, this is going to look like "density" or "growth" or "change." Genuinely sorry, but the world is not a static place and since freedom of movement inside the United States is still a thing, all pretending that it won't happen or trying to make policies to limit it will do is turn whatever other area into one of haves and have-nots.

0 - I wrote "they" because I'm not leaving. I must be one of the tiny minority of people who likes where I live and have no plans to depart. If everyone else wants to pack up from the West Coast city where I live and move to Omaha, good on 'em.

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#243

Post by TuringNYC »

wernercd wrote: post #173
quaffapint wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I chalk it up to things simply costing more. I make more than my dad did. I dont take any major vacations, go out much, or live in a McMansion, yet we struggle to save.As a kid we took lots of vacations, they saved a good amount of money (stock market was good for them) and are doing well for themselves. I imagine it's only going to be worse for my kids.

My problem with "life" is all the... nickle and dimes... $10 for Nextflix, $90 for Amazon, etc. On top of Gas, Electric, Phone, Internet, Car, Insurance, Gas, etc. It's easy to watch the money flow in... and right back out.

This is the "Avocado Toast" argument that we're poor because we spend $10 on Avocado Toast.

It is totally false. It blames citizens for national structural economic problems like hidden inflation and like bad housing policies discouraging building/planning.

People spend $10 for Nextflix, $90 for Amazon, etc as short term pleasures because they cant spend $GIANT on a mortgage. What are you supposed to do? Might as well treat yourself.

Of course, I'd rather get a home, but if I cant afford it, I wont just sit at home staring at a wall.

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#244

Post by zxcmx »

brianlweiner wrote: post #216
onion2k wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

House prices will never fall significantly. As soon as a house enters the market at anything below the going rate it's bought by a landlord or a rental company. This will keep house prices high forever.

What's your model?

My mental model is that there's too much wealth sloshing around for "large incomes" to make too much difference.

High income is like delta-v, it's great. But you're still near the ground, and you're competing against people already in high orbit.

The beneficiaries of the housing explosion have equity which they can parlay into more ownership, whether for themselves as investments or their children.

Record low interest rates help prices by letting people lever up (letting them spend their lifetime earnings now) to compete but of course also bids up prices, again to the benefit of existing homeowners.

This is reflected in the fact that (for example) in the U.K over 1/3 of first time buyers did it by getting money from their parents: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/first-time-buyers-relying...

Furthermore, in the UK, Australia and NZ (less familiar with the US or Canada) it seems the government will move heaven and earth to prop up housing.

High immigration rates and supply restriction have not been helping.

I'm not as convinced as GP that the situation can last "forever", but I could see it lasting for another couple of decades. A true housing collapse would probably be a phyrric victory for the young.

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#245

Post by JanisL »

rvn1045 wrote: post #209
wonderwonder wrote: post #11

Millennials face a very real risk of being a lost generation financially. They have endured 2 major, years long recessions, and now the Covid pandemic coupled with social isolation and massive unemployment that does not appear to have an end date in sight. Housing is more expensive for them than prior generations, wages are stagnant, school is expensive and social conflict is also currently on deck. WW2 was of course…

There's always this kind of narrative floating around that's simply not true. Sure things are getting bad right now but times have been good for a decade. Also people always say this kind of thing and extrapolate current trends into the future. After the 2008 crisis which many thought would take a long time to recover from we've had unbelievable growth for a decade.

The recovery from 2008 was very uneven, because I'm in tech I did quite well but many of the people I knew from my community that were not in tech did badly. I think this unevenness in recovery is why that narrative persists so strongly.

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#246

Post by dcolkitt »

> Housing is more expensive for them than prior generations

I harp on this constantly. But housing is not more expensive in the majority of American metros. Adjusted for inflation the median cost per square foot of new housing is almost exactly the same as it was in 1990. (This doesn't even take into account that mortgage rates are drastically lower since then.)

We get skewed on this for two reasons. One is because homes today are substantially larger and have more amenities than they did in previous generations. We take for granted better fire safety, higher ceilings, central A/C, higher load electrical circuits, attached garages, better lighting, and swimming pools that are much more common in new construction.

Two is that we're highly skewed to a handful of elite metros, whose housing markets are not representative of the country as a whole. Housing is expensive in San Francisco, New York, LA, and DC. But in places like Tampa, Omaha, Cincinnati, and Phoenix the cost of housing (per square foot) has barely gone up at all.

The demand for ultra-expensive housing in places like the Bay Area is driven by the huge earning potential of the high-skilled labor market. (Of course the supply side of the equation is driven by NIMBY zealotry.) If you're talented enough to make it as an L8 at Google, then it probably does make sense to buy a house in Palo Alto. You'll earn far more money than you would in the St Louis tech scene. more than enough to make up for the living costs.

But unless you have the potential to become an L8 at Google (or equivalent), it makes no financial sense to choose to live in the Bay Area instead of Raleigh. It's like somebody who works as a back office bookkeeper insisting on buying custom tailored Seville Row suits for his work attire, then complaining that the costs of clothes has gotten out of hand.

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#247

Post by tonyedgecombe »

dweekly wrote: post #228
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m in my mid fifties and I have never had a company pension, defined benefit or contribution. I saw my first house decline in value by 25%. We had interest rates peaking at 15%. I didn’t have student loans but only because I didn’t go to university, just like 90% of my peer group. Unemployment was much higher than it is now and schools were teaching subjects for obsolete careers. It wasn’t as rosey as it is often po…

RE: "unemployment was much higher than it is now" - I'm not sure what country you're in, but here is a graph of the US unemployment rate since 1950: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE (unemployment was higher this year than any other period on the chart)

UK, as per the user who I replied to.

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#248

Post by leetcrew »

wernercd wrote: post #173
quaffapint wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I chalk it up to things simply costing more. I make more than my dad did. I dont take any major vacations, go out much, or live in a McMansion, yet we struggle to save.As a kid we took lots of vacations, they saved a good amount of money (stock market was good for them) and are doing well for themselves. I imagine it's only going to be worse for my kids.

My problem with "life" is all the... nickle and dimes... $10 for Nextflix, $90 for Amazon, etc. On top of Gas, Electric, Phone, Internet, Car, Insurance, Gas, etc. It's easy to watch the money flow in... and right back out.

this is a variation of the "avocado toast" argument. if you go crazy and subscribe to amazon prime, a music streaming service, and several video streaming services, you're paying somewhere around $100/month. if instead you invested the $100 every month, you could expect to have an extra ~$200k (inflation adjusted) after forty years. that's not nothing, but it doesn't add a whole lot to your safe withdrawal rate in retirement (roughly $8000/year). if you're only able to save a couple hundred bucks every month, that extra $100 makes a big difference. if you're saving $1000+, your subscriptions aren't going to make or break your retirement; you need to dig into those bigger fixed costs to really move the needle.

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#249

Post by PaulStatezny »

_qulr wrote: post #240
PaulStatezny wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the thing is, nobody said you have to pay for Netflix or Amazon. Each person is responsible for making good choices with his or her money. Lack of financial discipline is not society's fault. Yes, managing finances takes some level of skill when there are many different expenses in a modern personal budget. But there are ways to live frugally and get ahead. They just aren't flashy or fun. On two very small income…

Standard Netflix is $12.99 per month currently. So that's $155.88 per year. Over 4 years, $623.52. You didn't pay off $60k in student loan debt and buy a house by refraining from Netflix.

Correct. It was from being very frugal in _all_ areas of the budget. Eating out, entertainment, internet, not taking vacations that wouldn't be financially responsible. Frugal dates, frugal Christmas/holiday celebrations, living in an extremely inexpensive apartment in a not-wonderful area of town. We were pretty late adopters of smart phones because we had cheap flip phones. We gave to charity too.

It's all about priorities, and having a vision for being financially "free". The victim mentality is an _enemy_ of human creativity.

You can say, "this area is too expensive; we need to find a way to move somewhere else". You can say, "I need to sell this gas guzzler and get a cheap, used commuter car." These things aren't _fun_. But they set you up for success.

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#250

Post by throwaway287391 »

throwawaygh wrote: post #203
Philip-J-Fry wrote: post #94

I'm my early 20s and in the UK. I earn more than my Dad who is in his 50s. He managed to get a house, have money left over for an expensive hobby, decent car, the odd holiday etc. I'm a 90th percentile earner. Will 95+ percentile earner in a few years time. Yet it feels like I am not as well off as I should be. I don't live in an expensive area either. Yet I need to save so much money to even have the opportunity to…

Comparing a salary with a pension to a salary without a pension is insanity. Wages are not stagnant. They've declined precipitously. take-home pay is stagnant and pensions are dead.

Just for the record, I think "pension" in the UK means something quite different than it does in the US. A UK pension is (usually?) more like a US 401(k).
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